Chapter 26
On Sunday, Ron threw himself into his work. He lay across the mattresses and spread out papers and drank coffee and read. And then he was transported. He was back with his students and their essays embraced him like loving arms and he shared his feeling for them through his eyes and through his pen. He could picture each of them now as he read. He could see their faces and saw their hands crafting the essays as he walked up and down the aisles of his classroom.
Andrea wrote, “I can’t say that I enjoyed these stories but I’m glad that I read them.”
Donna wrote, “I feel stupid when I read this stuff because I never see the things in the stories that you do and I don’t think that I ever will.”
Lizette wrote, “These people were corny but not as corny as the Grendel story. I really hated that one.”
Anita wrote, “It helped to have us tell the stories to each other. Maybe they were stories that were meant to be told instead of being read because it was really interesting to hear them but really boring to read them.”
Judy wrote, I don’t agree with the Wife of Bath. I don’t think that women wish to have dominion over men. I think they want men to treat them like people. I think they still want that.”
Ron read the last one again with large smile on her face. She got it! That is what the literature is for. It is to help people to think about the world and themselves in the world.
Yvonne wrote, “I understand why they hated Jews, I hate them too.” Ron groaned as he read that one. “They got what they deserved for killing Jesus.”
Ron wondered if he had the right to address those kinds of prejudices. Was his goal to teach them about the language or to change the way that they thought. Well, the two did not have to be mutually exclusive Could he show her that he hated that attitude and not have her think that he hated her for having that attitude?
The phone rang and it was Zoe and she sounded vibrant and filled him with her electricity. “Are you working?’
“Yes, I’ve been at it for hours.”
“Have you thought about me?”
“Yes.”
He wondered if a woman really deserved to hear the truth when she asked a question like that. He hadn’t thought of her once. He thought about Robin and their conversation and their plans for tomorrow evening. He had thought about his students. But he hadn’t thought about her. Did that mean that he didn’t love her?
“Do you want to see me?”
Ron winced. “I can’t drive up there today Zoe, I really have too much work to get done before tomorrow.”
Zoe giggled. “With my sisters at home there are plenty of cars around. I could just drive down to see you.”
“That would be great,” said Ron. “Why don’t you leave in about an hour? That way I will be completely ready for a break when you get here.”
When they hung up, he thought. “Zoe is like a wet dream and I thought of nothing but her until I got Robin’s letter. And since Robin has been here, I haven’t thought of her at all, except how to keep her a secret from Robin. But Robin doesn’t make me happy and Zoe does. Does that mean that I don’t want to be happy? Shouldn’t I be thinking about the girl who does make me happy? But would that make me a real phony if I tried to tell myself what I should be thinking about? Too many questions without answers!” Ron tried to think about Zoe and automatically found himself squeezing his cock. He never touched himself when he thought about Robin. He wondered if that had always been true and what it meant if it was true. Then he turned back to the papers.
Rosa wrote, “All these people were greedy and their stories talk about how bad greed is. Did they know they were being bad when they were greedy?”
Una wrote, “I want to read stories that are true. Why are all the stories that we read made up?”
Ron wrote back to each of them like they were having a conversation. He knew that sometimes what he scrawled was illegible but they would just ask him what he had written and it would give him a chance to say what he had said to that particular girl to the whole class. Illegible handwriting could be a tool, it occurred to him. Unless they didn’t ask what it meant. In that case they probably wouldn’t have wanted to read what he had written anyway.